By: Kylie Drossner, Baylor University Intern
Midway ISD Education Foundation is thrilled to announce one of the largest and most impactful grants ever awarded, the “Career Connections = Student Success” grant. This grant will allow for a new elective to be implemented into River Valley Middle School and Midway Middle School.
This class, called Career Connections, will allow 6th and 7th grade students to get hands-on experience with multiple career paths throughout the year. The program includes fourteen units of study including fields such as biomedical engineering, forensic science, personal finance, culinary arts, and employability skills. The units are split into 10 – day segments which allows students to get an average of two weeks of experience with each of the career paths. These units can be modified into longer or shorter sessions depending on students’ interests and needs.
The program is provided by Paxton/Patterson College and Career Readiness Labs and is an all-inclusive package. Teachers will receive training specifically designed to help implement the curriculum and learning platform. Also included is course equipment such as prosthetic limbs, computer programing technology, and other career-specific laboratory equipment.
With such a large grant, many of our board members were excited about the impact this grant will have. Jennifer Getterman, Grant chair for the Education Foundation said “The career readiness program will allow students to develop skills that they will carry with them throughout their educational and professional careers.” Along with that, Kristi Miller, MEF President stated “The board & I are so excited to award the largest grant to date, to both Midway middle schools. With the generous support of our many donors, this grant will impact students with hands-on learning & spark their interests in many career fields! This is just a stepping stone in career readiness & more in depth curriculum offered at Midway High school!”
Ashley Canuteson, Director of College and Career Readiness, and the primary author for this grant stated, “students get to explore potential careers of interest while also learning about new opportunities they may have never heard of before.” This course allows 6th and 7th graders to start to explore their interests and career goals, and gives them insight into which electives they may want to take later in middle school and through high school.
In order to see a video explaining more about this program: click here
